🔎 What’s going on?
UK supermarket Marks & Spencer launch in-store farms across six London stores to supply fresh herbs to shoppers.
😮 Wowza, how do they do that?
Working with a vertical farming distributor, Infarm, they are bringing groundbreaking technology straight to our stores. Moving away from traditional farms, where food is grown using seeds, water, soil and fertilisers - Infarm are using one of the oldest farming technique called hydroponics. As the name gives it away, hydroponics is a method of growing food using just water and water-based nutrients. Yup, without any soil whatsoever!
❓Cool, but why should I care?
Hydroponics is often referred to as the future of farming because of the raft of benefits that come with it. They use fewer resources (i.e. land, water), zero pesticides, produce higher yield, and reduce food waste. And best of all, you know exactly where it was grown (right instore) and it’s fresher because it doesn’t travel very far.
🍀 Where do we need to be?
Reduce carbon emissions related to Agriculture. The IPCC estimates that around 24% of our carbon emissions come from Agriculture, Forestry and other land use (AFOLU). Adopting vertical farming could increase the production of food, whilst also reducing emissions, especially given that by 2050 we’ll be feeding 10 billion.
👤 What can I do about it?
Grow your own food at home using hydroponics!
Here are a couple of affordable choices to get you started: Seed Pantry, Miracle-Gro AeroGarden, Akarina.
If you still prefer to grow food using soil, then check out Click and Grow.